There has been a great deal of research on extending the spreadsheet paradigm. Spreadsheets have been extended to include support for image analysis, end-user programming, and data visualization. Most work has concentrated on data visualization. Spreadsheets have been extended to support complex objects in cells, such as charts and graphs. Some commercial products provide a drag and drop interface allowing users to create charts and graphs from existing data sources such as spreadsheets.
Many systems have been created to facilitate annotation of photos. These systems generally do not use the spreadsheet paradigm. Some approaches ease the process of tagging personal photograph collections by providing simple tagging interfaces, automatic content generation including tag suggestions, and integrating with third party photo sharing sites. Other approaches allow multiple users to collaboratively tag images. Much of the research for photo tagging concentrates on personal photo collections and not on scientific collections, which typically are much larger and have more tags per photo.
Systems are also built for browsing and retrieving images. Some approaches provide a zoomable interface to enable users to quickly navigate through large photo collections. Others provide 3D viewing environments out of 2D image collections using image based rendering techniques. Other systems have organized photos using timelines or hierarchical faceted metadata and dynamically generated query previews. Many applications, including those above, provide mechanisms for image retrieval, with the majority of systems employing content based image retrieval.
Existing spreadsheet systems, however, do not address certain fundamental needs that arise when working with large collections of objects having complex metadata attributes. There is still a need for simple and fast ways to quickly organize and analyze such collections of objects in a spreadsheet system.